


Geodes

by SandrC



Series: Not Another Fanfiction Collection [14]
Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Kill Your Darlings, Regis of Angst back on my bullshit, Whumptober 2019, unrelated oneshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-11-09 00:14:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 16,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20844380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: If you want to truly understand someone, break them. Geodes are their most beautiful when cracked in two, guts free in the air.(Whumptober 2019. Additional warnings for each chapter in the notes.)





	1. One: Shaky Hands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: character death, vague combat violence, spoilers for through episode 74

He stands there, resolute, mouth pinched in a tight frown. This is what he chose. _He did this_. He set himself on this path.

The grip he has on his sword is a chokehold, slicked with blood and sweat. The head tied to his hip is a shackle, a weight, a _reminder_. It whispers in _his_ voice, sly and so self-satisfied, gravel and honey and _everything_ he hates.

_Your fault. **Your fault**. This is **all** your fault_.

Red and gold and red and _red and **red**._

The tip of his sword quivers, barely noticeable in the low light of the Nine Hells, as he lifts it to position.

_Hold it high, Beverly. Feet wide. Hips cocked. Lower gravity, **lower** now. Angles and spread. Level it out._

_**Strike**. Now. **Now**, Beverly! There's an opening!_

Metal against metal, the bright sparks illuminate their fight with each encounter. Screaming edges a battle song.

Red eyes, unseeing, glazed. He smiles and it is not _his_ smile. He grins and it is not a _grin_. He calls out, longing, warm, happy, fake _fake **fake—!**_

"It's _so_ good to see you again."

But it's not. _It's not. **It's not!**_

Sword flashing out, an elegant tango of metal and blood and pain and cries. His fault. _His fault. **His fault.**_

A line, a strike, an arc of steel and iron and fire and it's over.

His hands are _shaking_.

His fault. _His fault. **His fault**_**.**

His hands, grip on his blade slackened and loose, are shaking.

His father bleeds out. _His daddy_. _His_ blade did this. _His_ actions. **_All him._**

His hands, stretched out like a terrified infant, are shaking.

In the Nine Hells, Beverly Toegold V, last of his name and his line, screams _anguish_.

His hands, wrapped around his face, dripping with blood and tears, are shaking.

_All_

** _his_ **

_fault._

After all, what _did_ he expect when Akarot died?


	2. Two: Explosion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers for episode 76

Jaina Bronzebeard steels herself when she sees them. Moonshine, dressed to the nines and still grinning like she's seeing stars everywhere she looks. The kid, Beverly, in fine military wear, traditional and a deep forest color, _weirdly_ stoic. And where she expected Hardwon to be is a half-elf, face twisted in discomfort, with a strangely dwarven beard and the Kings' Hammer at his hip.

_Oh. **Oh**. That's **Hardwon**._

_What_ the fuck _happened_ to them?

They're representing Gladeholm. With them is the older halfling and a tall high elf who looks pensive and frustrated. They step into their box and make their case.

Irondeep needs help. _Everyone_ knows that. The argument is _how_. Frostwind and their fucking coldass dwarves and their fucking insular frustrations put up a fight but Beverly, eyes wet and ringed with dark ash, speaks out and up.

He speaks of loss. He speaks of fear. He speaks of revenge and poison and combat.

And against all the odds, Cyrrus Coldaine _listens_.

But Thiala is there—fucking raging _bitch_, almost as bad as Akarot and whomever was fucking responsible for _Gemma_—and everyone _flees_ if they can. Everyone who can leave, _leaves_. Everyone who can protect others does. Jaina finds herself tearing the feathers off of some jackass angel. Shaves them close. Plucks the fuckers.

Moonshine and Beverly and Hardwon, Ulfgar and the halfling as well, tear into Thiala and her angels. They fall and rise and fall again. Like a futile dance.

This whole fucking thing feels futile but she continues to protect Maganus with her blade and her body. They need to stay alive. They need Frostwind. They need _every_ bit of help they can get.

And then, without warning, the final Saviour arrives but it is not a relief. It is _terror_. Because Alanis's eyes are blank and she has a tiara wrapped tightly around her head and Moonshine and Hardwon and Beverly—and even _Ulfgar_—are _horrified_ to see her.

Alanis raises her arms and flings them apart. There is an aggressive shattering noise.

The ground moves.

The ground is _gone_.

There is only the Astral Storm and Jaina and whatever that lies beyond it. The ringing in her ears drowns out everything, including her own screams.


	3. Three: Delerium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through ep 20, mentions of mind control, mild suicidal ideation, descriptions of disease and rot through fungi

The Nine Hells is a fucking nightmare. It's not like they expected it to be a goddamn _cakewalk_ or anything but, _fucking shit_, fire and brimstone was an _understatement_. It is torment and torture and whips and chains. It _is_ fire, yes, but ice and acid and poison and lightning. It is demons and devils and aberrations and people who have fallen doing something wrong for a noble reason, fighting a war they don't understand any more.

(_Irony. **Irony**_.)

And there, before Asmodeous's throne, is a crick elf covered in mushrooms. Like the ancient demon Zuggtmoy, she has horns of fungi tearing through paper-thin skin, blue-black blood seeping from her tear-ducts and the corners of her mouth. Her pale skin is riddled with black boils and scarring, her once beautiful face more haunting than anything else. She looks more harrowed and _angry_ than worried at their arrival.

In fact, she smiles and winks at them.

At one point, it would have been attractive. _It is **not**_. It is terrifying and perverse.

(His pulse _quickens_, as it did in Limbo, in Wrath, here in _Violence_. He _wants_ this fight more than _anything_ and it is worse than Lust, this _longing_.)

Thiala and Alanis save their spells as best they can. _That's fine_. Ulfgar can hit her. That's what he's _best_ at and, considering she deals in poison, he's best suited for it anyway.

She spits black bile and insults. Honeyed words and spells. Pseudopods and fingers hardened to claws. She hammers through a chunk of his health and stamina but he is triumphant. She flees.

(_Are they? **Are** they?_)

_Still,_ there is something _there_, in his chest after the fact. Something pushed in by her talons or injected by her fangs or ingested during combat. It doesn't matter in the long run. They just need to get to Asmodeus. They just need to _win_.

And they _do_. Or they _say_ they do.

(_At what cost?_ Liar. _Liar. **Liar**._ They, _too_, belong in that ninth hell. Betrayed their people, their planet, **_their everything_**.)

Bubbling beneath his skin is a _disease_, black and terrifying. Combat is a haze and he loses himself more and more in it. Each time he comes back, covered in blood and viscera, he finds more time has been taken from him.

He is less himself with every passing day.

(And then he is not himself _at all_. Not for a _long_ time. He is _nothing_.)

When he wakes again, in a holding cell of a ship, three worried, hopeful, _youthful_ faces looking at him, he tries. **_He tries._**

(She's _gone_. She _left_ them. She left him with _her_ and **_ran_**. It burns _it burns **it burns**._)

The anger rolls and boils but they offer him a drink, a chat, a place to vent out his frustration. They name the disease under his skin, given to him by that woman who walks the Prime Material Plane again, and they too want it _gone_. He tells them the truth.

(Or what he remembers. There is _so much_ that is gone. _So much_ lost to the black in his veins and on his skin. _So much_ lost to the red of battle and blood.)

They let him go. _Promise_ to find him.

(It doesn't matter.)

They promise to _cure_ him.

(It will be tangential to their own goal of saving their people.)

They promise to keep _her_ away from him.

(They don't have the power to. _No one_ does save **_her_**, and **_she's_** fucking gone.)

He dives and there is black again. Black on black on _black_.

(Who will he kill _this_ time? _Who will die this time?_)

And it is blank and nothing and no one.

(And _behind_ that, red and fire and a clenching in his chest. Eyes he _barely_ recognizes. A voice whispering, honey sweet. Fractal reminders of who he was, _who he could have been_. A thousand timelines not taken. Purple smoke and white light and black haze. A fog that consumes.)

(But even _that_ sensation is more than he deserves. And he sinks into the comfortable black and waits to _never wake again_.)


	4. Four: Human Shield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 70, suicidal idealation, implied emotional abuse, canon character death

He's never had much worth. Not in Irondeep—the only one there who couldn't see in the dark, who couldn't grow a _proper_ beard, who had a weak stomach for traditional foods—nor the workforce—too tall, too clumsy, too reckless, too _soft_—nor the world beyond the mountain itself—awkward, gangly, orphan, _bastard_.

Scarred from years of failing to be _anything of use_, he finds a place to slot in happily and clings to that with _all_ he has. Two people who care about him—they only care what you're _worth_ to them, what _you_ can _bring to the party_—and who like _him_ for _him_—the clown, the virgin, the blowhard, _the idiot_. Being a hero is something he's halfway decent at—_halfway_ is still falling short of _good enough_—and that makes him feel useful. He is content. _He is **content**._

He's waiting, _constantly_, for the other boot to drop.

Moonshine, _his sister_, gap-toothed smiles and mushrooms, takes a hard hit and he moves without thinking. He wakes to her face, worried, pain in his ribs, and he grins. "Not strong enough to do _me_ in," he jokes. She doesn't laugh.

_He'll do better **next** time._

Beverly, _his little brother_, small frame and _everything_ he could have _ever_ wished for growing up, is in a bind and he rushes in to keep him safe. One after another, he protects what he's found and when his vision returns, iron and copper and lavender on his tongue, he laughs. "You need to watch your back." No one responds.

_They deserve **better**._ Stronger. _Sturdier_.

_Again_, a blow to the head. _Again_, a spell that sears his flesh. _Again_, a cordon of arrows. _Again_, quarrels sticking out of him like a pincushion. _Again_, **_a lance in his ribs._**

Darkness is a _blessing_. Their faces are what drives him. Disappointment. Pain. _Frustration_.

_Ivory in his neck._

His value is in _his body_, in his ability to take wounds for them. If he cannot, then he has lost his way.

He has no worth save keeping _them_ alive.

If he can't even do _that_, then why keep him around?

They give him a second chance. They give him a new body. He owes them _two_ lives, or _three_. He owes them more years than he has left.

His new lungs ache and itch with unfamiliarity, his skin perfect and as unmarred as a child's. That won't last long. Not if he does his job.

He takes a sword to the gut and feels fulfilled. Beverly is still up. Moonshine is still up. He can fall. _It's fine_. **_They'll_** be fine.

It's his job, after all, to be their shield. So he shields with _all_ of him.


	5. Five: Gunpoint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 64

"Why can't you be _proud_ of me?! _Why's_ it have t'be this way?!" His hand is shaking. He gave up _so much_ for this. Sacrificed _everything_. _His fucking soul._

And _yet_—

Cobb's good eye is locked, horrified, at the firearm pointed at him. His hands are up, far away from his own holster, placating. He doesn't move. Doesn't _speak_.

"_I_ _asked_ and you said _no_! I _begged_ and you _refused_! And when it all comes down t'it, when I _finally_ have the strength, the fuckin' _skill_ t'back up my request, you're too _chickenshit_ t'pony up? Admit you were just _jealous_! Fuckin' _say_ it!" He's crying. _Why_ is he crying? What does he have to cry about? He's got _everything he could ever want_. Why is he—?

_Why_—?

Cobb's eye tracks up the barrel of his gun, meeting his own teary gaze. He maintains eye contact for a long time, unblinking, unmoving. He considers his next words carefully.

"That's _not_ th' reason I wouldn't teach ya."

"Then _why_? _What **was** it, Cobb_? Fuckin' scared someone would be _better'n_ you?"

"No."

_Fucking **liar**._

"_Yeah_? Then _what_?" His question becomes a snarl.

Cobb's gaze is steady, his hands still, his stance wide and open. His ears are back, mouth a firm frown. He doesn't look _mad_. He looks..._something else_.

"Y'know _damn_ _well **why**_. This is it." A flash and a sharp shock. A ripping pain blossoms in his hand and the gun goes flying. Cobb holsters his weapon, moving to kick the other into the crick mud.

He lets out a howl of rage and fury. It's animalistic and raw.

_He flees_.

Coz the _only_ thing that would kill him now is a bullet from a Crick and, considering _that_ little exchange, he doesn't stand a chance as it is.

Maybe _later_, when he's had time to get better gear and when Cobb has lost some of his edge. Maybe _later_, when he's made something of himself. Maybe _later_, when he feels less hollow.

_Then_—

Then he'd get his.

Then he'd make sure he was set for _life_.

And if it meant showing Cobb the business end of his gun again? _So be it._

He has _all the time in the world_. He's not worried.

_Only the bullet of a Crick._


	6. Six: Dragged Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 18, strong language, manipulative behaviour, Galad Rosell

She finds Galad Rosell. She launches at him, screaming, fights with all she has, and wakes again, bound, with his blade under her chin.

"_All this_ and you die on your knees? _Fitting_ for someone who betrayed the Light." _Pretentious **fuck**._

She spits in his face. "_Eat shit_."

"You think I _enjoy_ this? You think I _wanted_ to chase you down like a runaway _bitch_ and put you out of your misery?" Liar. _Liar_. _Fucking **liar**._

She doesn't answer. Just glares at his feet.

He uses the flat of his blade to push her head up so she's looking in his eyes. Blood trickles down her neck from the edge biting into her skin. He smiles and it is all teeth, feral and _insincere_. His face is _so pretty_ and his soul is _so rotten_. She spits in his face again.

There's a dark wave of fury that distorts his already sneering smile. He kicks her in the gut. She wheezes, spit dribbling down her chin, vision blurring. He grabs a fistful of her hair in his hand and yanks her head up to look at him again. A couple strands catch on his gauntlets. It's a sharp and grounding pain.

"I'm _going_ to let your son go. Consider it a _gift_ that the Light doesn't condone murdering children _and_," he says, as if he's _blessing_ her with this information, this knowledge "he hasn't done anything..._yet_."

"_Fuck_ you and _fuck_ your _goddamn bullshit **fucking cult!**_" She tries to bite at him, hammer at him, escape her bonds. She wants him _dead_. She wants her _husband_ back. _She wants her fucking life back!_

_Fuck_ him and _fuck_ the Chosen!

His face morphs into a gentle, condescending pout. "Lydia, _Lydia_, **_Lydia_**. That _**just** won't do_." He shifts his grip on her hair and drags her to her feet. She doesn't help him, going limp so he has to drag her full weight upwards. It hurts _so much_. "Say '_thank you, Galad_'. Say '_thank you **so** much for sparing **my child**_**.**"

She says _nothing_. She won't give him the _goddamn_ satisfaction. He thinks he's being _coy_, being _cute_. He thinks he's being _clever_, _pretending_ at kindness.

His mouth tightens and he sucks on his teeth. "_One more chance_ to earn forgiveness, Lydia. Say _'I renounce my false marriage and my bastard spawn and wish to rejoin the Light in its purity_'."

"_Burn in **hell**_." The sharpness of her words are punctuated by the blade jammed into her gut.

"I don't think I _will_," he smiles.

With that strike, she dies, kicking and screaming, angry and resentful. She will _not_ go quietly, _not ever_, and, _if she has her way_, she'll be back.

And she'll fucking _take them with her._

** _Every_ **

_single_

_one._


	7. Seven: Isolation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 51
> 
> (This is not my best but I'll take it. Quantity over quality is the goal. Write a lot and don't stress over how "good" any one is. I am content.)

They were _supposed_ to be heroes. They were supposed to _save_ people

Instead they were _liars_ and _frauds_. Fake fucks who couldn't be honest with _anyone_, let alone _themselves_.

Thiala was delusional and mad with power. Ulfgar was sick and battle hungry. And Alanis? She was _scared_.

They shouldn't _be_ like this but..._they were._

She couldn't let Thiala get away with it **_but_—**

She couldn't just outright kill Thiala **_but_—**

She couldn't try and change her mind **_but_—**

She couldn't do _nothing at all._

So she fled.

For a place so beautiful, the Faewild was _empty_. Never mind that Alanis had _chosen_ to hide away on an island in the ocean, protected by a Dragon Turtle. Never mind that Alanis had _chosen_ to cloak herself in the guise of a Sea Hag, someone _most_ sane folks would stay _far away_ from. Never mind that she used her cauldron to scry on the Prime Material Plane while she plotted to save everyone.

It was _unfathomably_ lonely. _Empty_.

_She deserved it_, though. After _all_ _they'd done_ to Bahumia, after _all they'd done_ to each other, she _deserved_ this hollow emptiness.

So she _watched_ and _waited_. Hoped that _someone_ would rise to the occasion and slow down Thiala's march on the Prime Material Plane. Hoped that someone would be a _real hero_. Hoped that _someone_ would be better than they were.

She missed her friends despite it all.


	8. Eight: Stab Wound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: graphic description of a bleeding wound, vague descriptions of the effects of blood loss

Moonshine peeled away from them for a moment, waving off their concern with a soft laugh and a yelled, "_Gotta piss_!"

"_Don't die_!" Beverly called back. Hardwon was retrieving his javelin from a fallen bugbear. He just waved her off, absently.

Once she was clear of them looting the corpses, hidden behind a small copse, she leaned against a larger tree and pulled her hand off where it had been resting on her hip.

Muddy, red-brown blood, almost _black_ with how much there was, coated the underside of her palm and soaked into her overalls. It was only because she had been applying constant pressure that it wasn't dripping down her side, but it started flowing freely now that she had stopped.

She hissed and pressed her hand back against the wound, willing it to _close_. She didn't have any more magic—she'd burned all her slots making sure the goblin ambush party that surprised them couldn't flee when they started kicking ass—but _surely_ Melora could afford her _something_. If she didn't at least stem the bleeding, she wouldn't be around much longer.

The ache of magical exhaustion pressed against her eyeballs as she pushed more and _more_, blood seeping between her fingers now.

_Dammit_. _Melora_. **_Fuck!_**

_**Stop** the bleeding. **Close**. Close the injury._

_**Cure Wounds.** Fucking **heal** already!_

Blood drenched the ground. _She was making it worse_. She was _hurting herself_ trying to heal.

She hadn't wanted them to _worry_.

She hadn't wanted them to stress over her.

She hadn't wanted them to drop everything for her. She wanted to be _stronger_ _than this._

Her ears rang, the ground under her feet warping to dump her unceremoniously on her knees. She may have let out a soft cry of pain but she couldn't tell.

After _all_ they'd been through, of _course_ it'd be a goblin's arrow that'd do her in. _Of-**fucking**-course._

Her vision started fading, her arms numb and her hand no longer pressed to her side. The leaves beneath her were a red-brown-green mess. Dirt coated everything, rust and black under her fingernails.

She just wanted to _help_.

_She **just—**_


	9. Nine: Shackled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is going up early coz I'm sick and I have it queued for midnight on Tumblr so y'all get it first here lmao.
> 
> Another one I scrapped to restart. Twice, really! So indecisive.
> 
> Warning: spoilers through episode 13, the concept of Galad Rosell just over the horizon

Beverly Toegold IV waited for his death.

They said he had murdered Merrick High Hill. They said he was guilty. They said he was getting a trial.

He knew it was all a farce though. They'd decided he was guilty from the moment they brought him in and chained him up. Even a blind man could see that the kangaroo court had made its ruling.

Hell, he _was_ a blind man, _at the moment_.

So he stood up and carefully walked after the Chosen who was escorting him to the throne room where his so-called "trial" would take place. His steps were shuffling and stilted so as to not pull the chains around his ankles too tight, his hands held awkwardly in front of him for a similar reason. He used his ears to place where his escort was and what pace the other Chosen—holding a sharp halberd at his back—was keeping. It kept him a good distance between the two and meant he wasn't in danger of getting stabbed for "trying to run".

Lost in thought, he tripped and fell flat on his face, knocking the wind out of him. It sent his senses reeling for a moment. Blood dripped down his chin.

He was down a _moment_ too long, as the Chosen hoisted him up by grabbing under his arms and dragged him the rest of the way into the throne room.

The loud sound of a public spectacle overwhelmed him when they entered. Hundreds of people yelling for his blood, for his head, for his _death_. He couldn't blame them _too_ much—though he would've hoped his neighbors and people who knew him as the captain of the Green Knights would've been mildly sympathetic.

In the depth of all that screaming and mob mentality, a single voice cut through. A clear, plaintive, "_Daddy?!_"

_Oh_.

He was going to die and it was going to be in front of his son, done up in chains.

"Oh _come on!_"

He was allowed to be a little peeved about this. They shouldn't be letting his son watch this. Beverly didn't deserve _this_.

_Martha_ didn't deserve this.

_He didn't deserve this._

For now he would play up ignorance. Play that he didn't know what was going on, that he was slated to die, if only for Beverly.

_For now_ he would submit to the chains, the puppet strings of this farce.

_Pelor, let him be **okay**. Let him get over this. Let him become stronger **in spite of** whatever may happen here._

_Pelor, let him learn from my mistakes. I want him to be **better than me**._

_Pelor, **please protect my son**._


	10. Ten: Unconscious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: not much save for some child endangerment

She'd always ran from her birthright. Moonshine Cybin, daughter of Jolene Cybin, Mee Maw to the crick elves, next in line to be Mee Maw herself. She didn't want that, so she said she needed to save _someone_, needed to help them out, needed to adventure, and _ran_.

She ran right into the arms of two idiots who needed her, and who she needed _just_ as much. A mutual buffoonery. It became her world, this small system of idiots she'd built herself. They supported one another and she wasn't expected to love them any more than just as friends.

But _now_, holding Beverly against her, she realized it was just _putting off the inevitable_. She was someone who loved _too_ much, _too_ hard, _too_ fast. She _gave_ more than she _got_ in any relationship she entered, so this family she had found would be no different.

He was a sturdy, _tough_ lil' boy, but his slack frame felt like a dead reminder of the frailty of life.

His chest was moving, _sure_, but him falling had shocked ice into her system and she had screamed, feral, to reach him.

He wasn't _dead_ but she had _thought_ he was and pushed herself to the edge to get to him, to save him, to keep him around, her _child_, her _boy_, _her_ Beverly!

_Sure_, she wasn't Meemaw of the crick, but she was building her own family and that was _terrifying_.

So she held Beverly to her chest and waited for him to wake.

She waited for him to be okay.

She waited for Hardwon to settle down and wait with her.

And she pointedly ignored the hammering in her chest and the ugly little monster that whispered "_you didn't want to take over Jolene's spot, you wanted to make your own family_".


	11. Eleven: Stitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: graphic description of open wounds, graphic depictions of stitching a large wound, offhand acknowledgement of child abuse

Hardwon could see yellow-white tendon, pink meat, and white bone between the lips of the gash in his arm. Blood was fucking _everywhere_, drenching his sleeves and caking the underside of his boots. His vision was swimming. _Fuck_. **_Shit_**. He fucked up.

_This_ was why you don't let some tetchy, drunk shithole teen handle mining equipment. This was _also_ why Hardwon wasn't fond of working the morning shift. Coz something about the sun rising meant shit got _slippery_ and _that_ meant that jackasses took nosedives off of stalactites. _Especially_ still-drunk-from-last-night jackasses who weren't wearing goddamn helmets and shit.

So now, _here he was_, dealing with said jackass's decision to do dumb shit with sharp things while vaguely drunk.

(Don't mind that the drunk teen jackass was _him_. He needed something ephemeral to be mad about to keep from feeling the pain fully.)

Despite how nasty it looked, it was still _just_ a flesh wound. Same as _all the others_. Not like they'd spare a cleric for him or any of the other Dwarphans. So he'd do what he _always_ did: fix it himself.

Thankfully—or _not_, depending on who you were asking—Hardwon was smart enough to carry a kit which contained a lighter, an extremely sharp needle, a strong black thread, a small flask of sharp Dwarven alcohol, and a dry cloth he kept replacing when he needed to.

Hardwon propped himself against the wall, ass in a puddle of mud and blood, and popped the flask open. He took a quick nip and rinsed out his wound—biting back a howl as the cold, strong liquor cleaned everything out—then threaded the needle. After the knot was done, he flicked the lighter and heated up the needle to make sure it was sanitary and could punch through flesh alright.

Then he maneuvered his arm so that he was pressing the wound closed, and started sewing.

The first puncture hurt like a _right_ bitch. Each subsequent one was _worse_. Hardwon was smart enough to keep the needle sharper than his own pick and it punched through his skin and muscle like butter. Each stitch, while messy, was tied off and sturdy. They weren't going _anywhere_ soon.

After the whole thing was closed off, he took another nip, doused his arm again, and used the cloth to wrap up his injury. Then he gave himself time to recover. Not _so_ much that the foreman would come looking, but enough that he would be able to stand without passing out. Then he shouldered his pick on his non-dominant side and packed up his kit.

Time to get back to it.

Here's hoping he didn't rip them while working.

(They _super_ wouldn't waste a cleric on him then.)


	12. Twelve: Don't Move

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 19

Erlin pressed himself into the floor, shaking. Around him were the sounds of battle and bloodshed. Blades and bodies. Cannon fire. People _dying_.

_People he knew_ and said _hi_ to for almost fifteen years.

His face hurt. His _heart_ hurt.

Nothing of _value_, but _pain_ nonetheless.

Egwene was upstairs, keeping the Chosen at bay with arrow after arrow, cigarette clenched between her teeth, brow furrowed.

She was _so much stronger_ than him. _He_, who was cowering in Missus Toegold's living room, next to the equally-shaky Missus Toegold and a dour and grumbly Nana. _He_, who was _supposed_ to be protecting the adults—who _should_ be able to protect themselves but also shouldn't _have_ to—with a single knife and a prayer.

(Egwene, eyes hard iron and mouth a thin slash, pressed the hilt of her hunting dagger in his hand. She pressed her finger to her lips and jerked her head up to indicate that she was going to be upstairs. She gestured with her other hand for him to stay. To wait. "**_Don't move_,**" she mouthed. "_**Only** use that if you **gotta**. Go for the armpit first.** Keep them safe**._" He nodded and she scampered back upstairs, pulling her bow from her back and jamming the shaft of an arrow between her teeth. She left him there and he was _so_ _scared_.)

He clutched her knife to his chest and breathed, slow and shallow. _Pelor_, how could he be _so useless_? Egwene was killing them from the second window. Beverly and Moonshine and Hardwon were _probably_ also killing Chosen traitors, wherever they were. Maybe saving Mister B.

_Pelor_, he hoped they _were_ saving him. Mister B didn't deserve to die. _Especially_ not if he didn't even do it.

Which he didn't. He couldn't.

_Someone_ hammered at the door and Erlin rushed forward to brace himself against it. The doorknob smashed into the bridge of his nose, up against the inside of his eye-socket, and he saw stars but he held fast, Egwene's dagger leaving strong imprints in his palm.

_Again_, a hammering, shouting and oaths to a god that was false, screams and gurgles. _Threats_. Two more voices. He held fast.

_Don't move_. Keep fast. If he couldn't fight, then he could hold down the fort. He could make himself a shield for Nana and Missus Toegold. He could be _worth something_. He could use his fear.

("Being on the front line is a _lot_!" Beverly had said, offhand, in Moonstone. "You're in the thick of it, there's _so much_ going on, and everything seems too slow and too fast all at once."

"You're _really_ brave, dude," he admitted. He could feel the flush crawling across his nose and up his ears. "For, _like_, doing that _even though you were scared._"

"I wouldn't call it _brave_," Beverly dismissed. He gave Erlin a shy grin. His shoulders were at his ears. He wasn't making eye contact. "_It's just_...I had something worth more to worry about, _right_? Like, not just winning, not beating them, but keeping you all _safe_? Cran and Durlin and - and _you_?"

Erlin was _certain_ his face was red beyond belief. Bev didn't like him in _that_ way but...that he was thinking about him. Worrying about him. Meant a _lot_.

"_I_ think it's brave."

Beverly beamed like the sun was rising and something in Erlin clicked into place. He had found his light.)

For him, for his sun, he could be brave. He could fight by being a coward. By being a _contradiction_.

Don't move. _Don't move. **Don't move.**_


	13. Thirteen: Adrenaline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 51, disjointed narrative in a very panicked manner, vague mentions of memory tampering, mentions of combat violence

She screams out in pain and he is _here_ but he is—

_Their bodies splayed over the ground, **unseeing**—_

Blade drawn, arm a sharp arc that snaps wide into meat. Something in him gives but—

_He had left for **just** a moment and avoided death. They - **they** had not and it was—_

_Another_ noise. Bow loosing and the whistle of fletching screaming across space. A wet dot, a wet _gasp_, he turns to—

_Blade against training dummy. Straw flying and shredded. Clenched throat and teeth. His heart **hurts**. Blood between his knuckles though he cannot—_

Small form, _unmoving_. Larger above it. Bow across the battlefield and he _knows_, howling _fury_. Bared teeth, he whips his gun upward—

_She smiles and it is sad but **he does not care**. She asked **before** and he **refused**. She asked **before** and **he had ties**. She asks **again**—_

Something in him is _wrong_. His head, buzzing, ringing, _pain_. Gun up, out, level at the bowman. _Again_. Claps of thunder. More ringing. _Again_. _Again_, he fires—

_Give up. **Go**. You have **nothing** left. Nothing to live for. Go. **Go**. Make it—_

Bearing down, feral snarl. _Screaming_. Is it his? He can't tell. Again. _Again_. **_Again_**. Blood between his fingers, blade gripped loose, he moves—

_Nodding. A sad smile. An apology but don't **don't don't**. You **know** better. **You knew**. And he kneels and she chants and before he is gone she says—_

Darkness splatters, bright lights and opening, fluttering. _Blood_? Terror. He hears his name. He can't _he can't **he can't**_—

_There is **nothing** here. There **never was**. There **never will be**. He is—_

His name, fluttering words, soft birds, spoken like a prayer. He _knows_ this tone. _Was_ this tone. He sighs, a moan of existence, and sees a figure. _Three_. Three of them. And that is _more_ than he deserves and he starts—

_Three shadows. Forms. **Confusion**. Foremost a **boy**? His son? **No**, the pain in his chest hurts when he thinks that so it must be **less**. A boy. **Not his son**. He bows and this boy—_

He is safe. He is _safe. He is safe. **He is safe.**_

_**They** are **safe**._

_They—_


	14. Fourteen (Alt.): Touch-Starved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 66, allusions to child abuse, references to self-medicating through drugs and alcohol

Hardwon would not admit he _liked_ the casual nature of their party. He would not admit he liked the _ease_ at which they threw around affirmations and "_I love you_". He would not admit he liked the fact that he _never_ had to explain himself or his reasoning to them. _They just understood_.

Hardwon would not admit he was hollow inside. That there was this _emptiness_ that he could _never_ fill, no matter how hard he tried or how much he drank or how much R. Cane he did. That the biggest, _loudest_ part of his personality was a façade for a scared and lonely young boy who grew up at arms-length from any and everyone.

He would never admit it. _Out loud._

Moonshine was free with her love. Casual hip-checks. Laughing shoves. Resting her chin on Hardwon's shoulders or his head. Wrestling. Hugging. Holding hands. Little touches here and there, flashes of skin against skin.

She was a whirlwind of affection and laughter. The opposite of closed-off Hardwon. An open book to his geode. She was _intimidating_ in how easily she gave up parts of herself to love others.

How was she not _terrified_ of someone _using that against her_? It had happened before, _hadn't it_? So why did she keep loving like she did?

But he was grateful when he felt the weight of Gemma's death press air from his lungs and she wrapped herself around him and let him cry without a word. A comforting weight to combat the debilitating grief that filled him to the brim.

Beverly was young and full of affection. He hadn't had it beaten out of him by bosses or bullies. He hadn't had the world stomp out his wide-eyed enthusiasm. He rode on Hardwon or Moonshine's shoulders, feet kicking happily. He wrapped himself around them when he was worried. He hugged them as a greeting and high-fived as a farewell. He leaned against them when he rested, nodding off a little in the midday warmth.

And when they got to his home, _way back then_, he offered they share a bed, even though his legs still weren't fully healed. He had wanted the reassurance they were _there_ and weren't _leaving. _Something about sleeping back to back, curled into each other, made him _feel better_.

It was a vulnerability Hardwon hadn't experienced before and he found that it started to heal old wounds inside of him. Even if it set his senses on high alert the first time.

So they continued to do it. _One big bed_, Moonshine and Hardwon sandwiching the smaller Beverly. And while Moonshine snored like a _fiend_ when she actually _slept_ and Beverly often got restless when he dreamed, there was a level of intimacy there, in the simple act of sharing a bed, that was so foreign and so _needed_.

And then he _died_.

_Became a vampire._

And he couldn't touch them even if he _wanted_ to.

Because the blood beneath their skin was far more of a _temptation_ than the warmth it provided. Because their body heat was fire to the ice in his veins. Because he looked at them, bleary, and saw _food_.

Because Moonshine's wide smile and casual touches became an _opening_ he could strike through.

Because Beverly's soft, teenaged affections and need for comfort became a _weakness_ he could exploit.

Because his walls rose up and closed him off from everyone, a dome of ebony and ivory.

And that was _fine_. He'd lived this life before. _He'd be fine._

Hollow and cold and _alone_, but _fine_.


	15. Fifteen: Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 13, mentions of Denny Pebblepot

Martha Toegold worried for her boy. She had _every right to_, of course, but he _should've_ been back by now. Denny Pebblepot had sent a missive stating, in so many words, "_The Jamboreen was a disaster. Kids will be home soon. I've been told if I go near your children again that I will die and I don't plan on doing that so I'm going to Hillholm. Sorry._" And yet, Bev wasn't home yet. He was _missing_.

And she _worried_, as she is wont to do.

So when she heard Beverly hollering about something at the door, she was worried more. Peeling away from her stress baking, she dusted her hands off her apron and headed down to see what he was on about.

And _there_, being yelled at by Beverly, was _her son_. Her baby boy, blood _all_ _over_ his face, in a backpack being worn by a scrappy looking human man. Bev was crying openly and apologizing, arms gesturing about but all Martha could see was his face and his _legs_. All she could focus on was the damage he had accrued.

Splitting right over his eyebrow and down over the upper part of his bridge was a nasty, magically healed scar. Deep enough that it looked like something had smashed into his forehead, leaving behind a starburst that reached outward with pale roots.

It didn't seem to have done more than give him a bit of a concussion and break up his hairline. He'd always have a bit of trouble getting his eyebrows to grow in right after this but it looked like it had been bad before it healed up.

Then there was the reason he was being carried by this human man: _his legs_.

_Gods_, his legs.

Martha wasn't religious like her husband or her son—both raised into the worship of Pelor, who she considered a _fine enough_ god, all things considered—but there _had_ to be some higher power at work here. Something with a cruel sense of humor. Something that had to have utterly decimated the legs of a fifteen year old boy _for a reason_.

_Otherwise it was just fate_, and poorly tempted fate at that.

Otherwise it meant that Bev had been closer to death than she was comfortable thinking about.

Idly, shock still stealing her senses, she caught the back end of Bev's teary explanation. _Yes_, it _had_ been a god. The people helping him were his new scout masters. He needed Merrick High Hill for a Greater Restoration or his legs would be jacked up forever.

They'd still never be the same, she realized, but at least they'd be _usable_.

After High Priest Merrick left, Beverly escorting him back to the Temple District, Martha checked back up on Bev and his scout masters—she was having a hard time remembering their names in the wake of the adrenaline, but they _seemed_ good enough. Something had happened earlier with Galad Rosell and the three of them had come back in, covered in _something_ _unidentifiable_ and more tired than before, but now were all curled in Bev's bed together, sleeping it off.

The human and the elf were sandwiching Bev between them, both snoring up a storm, while her baby boy was peacefully asleep. He had one hand pressed against the starburst on his forehead and the other under his pillow. His legs, healed now but also marked up with almost a dozen small crosshatched light scars, were curled tight against his chest.

He seemed content.

And _sure_, she worried for him, but if he wanted to explore, who was she to say no? If all he got after trying to trick a god were some scars, he could take on _anything_ with no trouble.

They were only _scars_, after all. Nothing more, nothing less.

Just scars.

What's the worst that could happen?


	16. Ten (Alt.): Nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Went with this one instead of "Pinned Down" coz I liked it better.
> 
> Warning: spoilers through episode 47, insects, body horror, death, gore, undead, and general nightmare bullshit

_Again_, Galaderon is falling down around her. Everyone is running and screaming. She and Derlin are huddling down with the remainder of the Green and White Knights in the temple to Pelor. They call on the magic of Pelor, the magic of the sun and life and nature.

_He does not answer in time._

The Chosen descend in pillars of fire and salt, rending them limb from limb. People she's known since she was _little_ become nothing more than smears of blood and flesh. Her neighbors and Green Teen mates are chunky soup, a fine mist of red on the wind of these monster's hideous and twisted wings.

Bone and flesh with feathers dripping crooked off their spurs. They _scream_ with jaws unhinged and she _howls_ in terror, scrambling away, her hands reaching for her dagger—

—plunges into the ice-cold flesh of a Winter Eladrin, their sputtering insides coating the side of her face in a teal-green ooze. She ignores it and moves forward.

_For **Derlin**. For **Beverlin**. For **Hardshine**. For **her family**._

Iron _becomes_ her, a shell of plates and nails and spikes, she ploughs through fae after fae, claws and teeth bared. She is a monster for them, a monstrous monster hunter, but if it means she can live _in peace_, live on with her family and loved ones, she will become the devil himself.

At the end of it, shivering and purple from the cold of the act and the blood smeared across her scarred cheeks, she embraces him. Derlin sweeps her off her feet and kisses her full on the mouth. She loses herself in his embrace, letting his sweetness flood her lungs.

She is _drowning_ in honey, his eyes octagonal combs sprouting wide blossoms of purple nightshade and pure white lilies. His mouth, dripping wax cooled like a seal against hers, works strangely.

"_I love you_" he breathes and she _chokes_ on the sentiment. She claws at her face, his face, their face with iron claws and iron teeth and iron skin. Iron blood a rust color. A buzzing starts in her lungs and she can feel her body become a _hive_. A _home_.

_Productive_.

Lashes dusted with a yellow pollen she weeps tree sap but they are together. They're together and that's _fine_, right? _Right?!_ And she closes her eyes and—

—the world is white and ice and _endless pain_. In the distance she can hear wailing and gnashing of teeth. She can hear people of all ages crying and _she knows why._

This is a _graveyard_ and it is _judgement day_. Everything she's done has come back to haunt her. She _deserves_ it though.

They grab her, first her ankles, breaking skin and blood and drawing sharp apologies from her lips, ice that coalesces into soap bubbles and flies away. Then they drag her down inch by inch.

Iron knight, _monster_, **_killer_**.

They call her _mother_ and _terror_ and _murderer_.

_None_ of them are wrong. She doesn't argue. She just lets herself go.

_She deserves it._

And beneath the ground, wreathed in a cocoon of writhing corpses and paper pale skin, bones burst from her back and wings of metal drag her deeper into hell. Into the bile of the earth, her waiting maw open to receive the latest offering.

Dragging her down is her sins. _Her sins. **Her sins**._ A fine platter. A promise to never leave. A promise broken on each feather, engraved.

The earth sighs lava and smoke.

**_Could be sweeter. Maybe some honey? Honey and ice cream_**—

Cran wakes up with a gasp, heaving in terror. None of her alarms have gone off. She is just awake.

She curls in on herself, smaller than she's been in almost thirty years, and cries herself to sleep again.

** _Again—_ **

_Again, Galaderon is falling down around her._


	17. Seventeen: "Stay With Me"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Spoilers through episode 70
> 
> A lighter one after yesterday's chapter being all...nightmare fuel (literally lmao). Hardwon seems to be an easy target for me. Something about the juxtaposition of this tough dude who wants to love but has been battered down until he can't show it now, when he has the chance. Or something like that.

He's _terrified_. He's _allowed_ to be terrified because, _fuck man_, he's kinda sorta _dying_. 'Kinda sorta' being the imperative statement but, fucking reincarnation is kinda like dying, _yeah_?

** _Right?_ **

Fucking _gods_, he’s died _so_ many times now, why would _this one_ be the one that gets him? Why would _this_ be the one that he’s afraid _for_? Why not any of the others?

_Oh, yeah_, the _anticipation_. Because unlike the other deaths—violent and sudden—this one is something he’s seeking. Something he’s _asking_ for._ Something he **wants.**_ And that is _inherently_ terrifying. More than anything he’s ever done before.

Because he’s asking for help and _help_ means _hurt_ and **_hurt _**means—

—well he isn’t sure _what_ all it means here but...there’s this hollow in his chest where his heart used to beat and he wants—_he wants_—

—_he **wants—?**_

He smiles, _closed mouth_, and nods to Moonshine, who sits down and holds her hands out. “_Trust me_,” her actions say. “_Don’t worry_,” her eyes say. “_You’re going to be okay,_” her smile says.

And he does, despite the animal inside of him screaming to run run _run run **run away.**_

Because she is asking her goddess to help him.

Because he wants—

—_he wants_—

—he wants to _live_, dammit.

“Stay with me,” her voice says.

And he _does_.

And he _dies_.

And he stays.

And he wants—

—_he wants_—

—_he **wants.**_


	18. Eighteen: Muffled Scream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 70

He didn’t know _what_ he expected. After all, while he was _here_, learning how to be a cleric and how to help save his people, Bev was off saving the _whole dang world._ He was adventuring and seeing new and strange people in new and strange places. And while it had only been a couple months since they’d last seen each other, had it been selfish of him to want everything to be the same between them?

_Apparently._

And it _hurt_. _Pelor_, it hurt! His boyfriend—or not even _that_, right? They weren’t even _that_ because _why else_ would he have kissed someone else?!—but he_ willingly submitted_ to Zone of Truth. _Requested_ it, even. Like he hadn’t trusted himself to be _honest_ with him and that was _worse_ somehow? _Why_ was that worse? _Why did it hurt so bad?!_ But he could let it go, right? **_Right?_**

_Apparently **not.**_

Egwene gave him his space to be sad for a whole day. Even kept the rest of the crew away. Then she came by his room on the ship and stood over his prone form, hands on her hips, scowl in place.

“_Look_, you little shit. _I get it._ Remember when _I_ got dumped?”

He whimpered, rolling over in his bunk to face the wall. She hissed through her teeth and sat down, her back against the curve of his as he curled into a small ball.

“Felt like my world was ending. Like _I_ wasn’t fucking _worth it_. Spent fucking _weeks_ firing arrows into that training dummy in the back yard until I’d fucking snapped my damn arm raw and torn the fletching off the shafts. Nana gave me an earful. Said it was _wasteful_.”

She trailed off, letting him have the emptiness for a moment. Then she continued.

“But fucking, at least _your_ heartbreak had the stones to tell you himself. At least _he_ fucking had the fucking _decency_ to beg for you to forgive him, _right_? Not like you had to see him making out with someone else. Not like you had to catch him talking shit behind your back.” She clenched a fistful of sheets in her hand and inhaled sharply. “It hurts, _yeah_, but you at least get that closure, _right_?”

He didn’t answer. He just curled smaller in on himself and gripped his pillow tighter.

He missed _home_. He missed how _simple_ things used to be. He missed how _easy_ it had been back then, before it had gone to shit and the former heroes had come back to destroy the world they’d saved.

He missed _Beverly_.

_Pelor_, he missed Beverly _so bad_.

He barely felt Egwene rubbing his back as he cried over a love he had barely experienced.

It wasn’t supposed to _be_ like this. They were supposed to be _enjoying_ the summer. Enjoying their _childhood_. Having fun and kissing on hills and shyly holding hands and weaving flower crowns.

He let out a wail, muffled by his pillow, mourning everything he had lost. Everything he had given up to help.

After all, _it was only the end of the world._


	19. Eleven (Alt.): Infection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 29, mentions of fungi and rot
> 
> Sorry y'all. Couldn't figure out Asphyxiate. Went with this instead.
> 
> First person POV for a change coz I can.

It was _my fucking birthright_. It was _**my** goddamn fucking home **too**_. How _dare_ you snatch it away like that?! _My fucking **sister! **_My sister _and the man I **thought** loved me._ Fucking took _everything_ from me and didn't give a godsdamn.

_It_

_was_

** _my_ **

** _fucking_ **

** _gods-given_ **

** _right._ **

But _there_ Jolene is, sitting pretty topside as fucking _Meemaw_ of the fucking _Crick_, while _I_ freeze my godsdamned _tits_ off in the Hells.

In _Violence_ no less.

<strike> _(I'm sorry. I'm **so so** sorry Jolene. I didn't mean for this to happen. **Please**, take care of them for me. I didn't **mean** for you to do this **alone**. I'm sorry. **I'm sorry**.)_ </strike>

Spit in my face while I'm down, _huh_? Kick me in the _fucking_ ribs while I'm busy dealing with the fallout, _yeah_?

_Ain't that just how it goes?_ Everything _Marabelle_ has, Jolene _wants_, and Jolene _always_ gets what she fucking wants.

Bitch. _Bitch. **Bitch!**_

Fucking liar! Thief! **_Traitor!_ **_You_ should be trapped here! _**Not** fucking **me!**_

<strike> _(No. **No**. **No one** should be here, in the coldest parts of the Hells. Not **you**. **Not you**, Jolene, and not **him** neither. You didn't take **nothing** that wasn't mine in the first place and **you know it.** Don't feel guilty. **Please** just live your life. Don't linger. Keep them **safe**.)_ </strike>

If Jolene wants what Marabelle has, then maybe I'll fucking _give_ it to her. You can fucking well have _this_.

Coz the _one_ thing I've _always_ been better at than you was _mushrooms_. And now that's _all_ I am.

Mushrooms and _hate_.

You want it _so bad_, little sis? You want _everything_ I've ever had? Then you can fucking _have_ it. _Take it **all**._ _Every_**_ last little bit._**

<strike> _(It's **sickening**, how **easy** it is for the anger to fester. Bubble and brew into **something horrible**. How much of this is **me** and how much of this is Hellish influence? I was always angry, so I guess it tracks. You were the better of the two of us and I should've realized sooner. You were always the better leader anyway. Much more level-headed.)_ </strike>

And time is fucky here. I've got time _to spare_. Let's see what nasty things I can cook up while I wait? What all I can dredge up from the sludge to _make you suffer_, _yeah_? And when all's said and done, I want you to _beg_, on your _fucking knees_, that I _take it back_. I want you to _lick_ my _fucking_ _feet_ and apoligize for _ever_ being fucking _born_. _Then_ I'll consider putting you out of your fucking misery.

Only _then_ will I _entertain_ the idea of putting you in the dirt to nourish my children. _Only then_ will I court the _thought_ of ending your godsdamned life.

<strike> _(If you see me again, it's not gonna be **me**. It's not gonna be your big sister, who wanted you to be the best you could. It's gonna be this **monster** of fungus and **hate** and you're gonna hafta put a bullet in my head and I'm **so sorry** to force your hand like that. Y'all don't deserve that. Not **you**, not **him**, not **anyone**. But I'm not gonna be **me** anymore and I can't control that. **Please**, Jolene, **just kill me.** Help me by killing me. **Jolene**, I'm begging you to **please** just end my life. It'll be better for **everyone** if you do.)_ </strike>

Hope you like my gift. My _preview_. Coz that fucking hero thought he did me in but he didn't finish the fucking job. And with Asmodeus dead and gone, I'm _home_ fucking _free_. So you and _every other goddamn fucking elf in the Crick_ is gonna get a taste of my anger.

But _especially_ you.

I'm gonna _personally_ make sure your lungs are _swamped_ with it.

Fucking _teach you_ to take from _me_.

It was my _goddamn_ right.

And I'm in the fucking right.

So have _fun_ playing house while you can, _lil sis_. Coz I'm coming home and I'm bringing hell to your fucking doorstep. Set the table for three: you, me, _and the Grim fucking Reaper._

** <strike> _(I'm sorry Jolene. I'm sorry Jolene. I'm sorry Jolene.)_ </strike> **


	20. Twenty: Trembling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 45

She hadn't expected to see _him_ here. _Fuck_, she hadn't expected to see him _ever again_. Not after how things had ended in Irondeep. Not after he stormed off, confused and hurt

But here he was, looking for all the world like a nervous kid again. Blushing and _everything_. Hiding in a back room, waiting for her.

(How long ago had it been since they'd first kissed? How long ago had it been since they snuck off to hide in the mining tunnels to sit and drink and complain about the unfairness of life? How could so few years feel like centuries under the lens of an event like this? It was fucking _boggling_, the perspective.)

He congratulated her, stammering, stuttering and she didn’t know how to feel. _Happy_? It was her wedding day! She _should_ feel happy about it, _right_? _Even if_ she hadn’t really _met_ Gerrard before the engagement was solidified. _Even if_ the ice and snow of Frostwind felt _more_ isolating than the caverns of Irondeep had _ever_ been. _Even if_ she really was just using Gerrard to run, _like she had with Hardwon._

She should be _happy_. Not hiding in a hallway, talking to her ex in hushed tones, flushed and excited to see something and someone _familiar_ in all of this white and blue and silver.

(He had been stuttering and stammering then too. Barely a beard on his face, easily taller than most of the others, he didn’t give a _rat’s ass_ that she was Gemma _Bronzebeard_. He didn’t care about her name or her family—save _Rust_, who was a jackass and a bully, and who Hardwon disliked with every mean bone in his body, _bless him_—he just liked _her_. And it was _freeing_, for a bit, to have someone see _her_. Just _Gemma_.)

He dragged her up a set of stairs into a tower, the snow falling in fractal spirals that left soft powder dusting on every flat surface. There, in the bright, unfiltered light of the outside world, set against the night sky, she could see him better than ever before.

Underground he had been _surviving_. Here he was _thriving_.

His skin was marked with new scars and lines, but also a warm smattering of freckles across his shoulders and his cheeks. A few shades darker than she’d last seen it too, though his hair was a little lighter and pulled into a knotted bun that seemed deliberate. His beard was just as well-kept as she remembered, though there were a few new trinkets weaved into it and one of the braids looked sloppy, like someone untrained had tried to redo it but he'd kept it there for some reason.

And he was dressed _so nicely_. Sturdy clothes that fit properly instead of hand-me downs re-tailored to fit him, stitched together with several different cloths. Still liked to go sleeveless, _sure_, but that seemed to just be his MO, so she wouldn’t complain. _Especially_ since she got to appreciate how ripped he’d gotten.

For all that she had idealized her time with him in Irondeep, he looked like he was doing better out here, away from the mountain and the mines.

_Morridan_, she wished that was her.

(She broke it off because her dad would have _killed_ him. _No one_ would give a shit about some orphan human who’d been overstaying his welcome. _No one_ would care about _Hardwon **fucking** Surefoot_. It hurt and it was gone over before she could blink. He'd be safe. She'd get over it.)

He didn’t come for her, but he _was_ there. He had Ulfgar in a fucking_ gem_. He had _Ulfgar_, saviour of Bahumia, in a fucking _goddamn **prison gem**_. And _he_ needed _her_ help.

That was _so_ fucking wild and _so_ fucking like him.

Time changed a person, didn’t it? _She’d_ kept running, as far as she could under the circumstances, and _he’d_ gone off and become some kind of hero. A warrior. Someone who faced off against something that razed a town. Someone who had met one of the saviours of Bahumia.

She’d just become a _better _coward.

And he was asking her for help with something big, not _just_ because he missed her—no matter how much he protested, he _did_ look overjoyed to see her—but because he _trusted_ her. He trusted her to help, _even after everything._

Even expressed _regret_, not over ever having dated her—he seemed to be pretty steadfast that it was a _good_ thing for him—but that she continued to be under someone else’s control, _even_ after _all_ this time. That _their_ relationship had ended because of someone else’s opinion and that _this_ _one_ began for the same reason.

That she was still trapped in a gilded cage with clipped wings.

In that moment, backlit by stars, smiling sadly, he looked for all the world like an angel sent to _save_ her. In that moment, heart in her throat, all her doubts brought to the surface and poked at with a stick until agitated, she leapt forward and kissed him.

_He kissed her back_.

(She wasn’t really sure _what_ to make of Hardwon at first. _Sure_, she’d heard of the human that was living in the Dwarfinage. _Sure_ she’d heard of the kid who’d cracked his skull open trying to reach a vein about fifteen feet up. _Sure_, she’d heard Rust bitch and moan about _this fucking nerd_ he was beating on, but she’d never _met_ him. So she got _curious_ and she went to work in the mines, _just_ to see what the fuss was about.

People talk about love like it’s some grand event. Like when you find someone, there’s lights and sounds and _songs_. Like when you see The One, _everything_ makes sense. That the universe rights itself and says “yes, _this_ is _it_”.

When she saw Hardwon Surefoot, there was _none_ of that. Instead she just saw this wiry, tall human wearing Goggles of Night Vision, pick slung over his shoulder, beard coming in a little patchy, scowling. He pushed past her—despite Jaina’s shouted frustration over his disrespect—and continued on to do his job.

He was rude as hell and all but ignored her.

_She’d never been so starstruck._)

Dying was a unique experience. Most people only get to experience it _once_ and, for each one, it’s different.

For Gemma Bronzebeard, it was the day of her wedding to Gerrard Coldain—already dead, his body scrubbed clean through infernal rituals to be used as a puppet for a darker purpose, _unbeknownst to anyone_—and stabbed in the neck with a dagger by a well-trained assassin.

It was too quick for either of them to react. Not her, not him, not anyone who could have prevented any of this. One moment she was pressed against him, pressing into him, shaking from the cold and _want_ and _all_ the emotions she’d been holding back this whole time. The next, he was alone.

She’d left him again.

And _again_, it wasn’t her choice.


	21. Six (Alt.): Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 69, strong language (moreso than usual), mild descriptions of gore and violence, canon minor character death
> 
> The actual day 21 prompt was "Laced Drink" and I couldn't think of any way for me to not be uncomfortable with it — considering the one character who is resistant to poison through ingestion is a minor — so I scrapped it for an alternative prompt.
> 
> This one is rough and very disjointed and, should anyone ask, I will tag for other things. It's on par with Nightmares or Adrenaline for lack of coherency but that's on purpose. Hope y'all like it though.

In the end, she died.

Only she _didn't_.

She's died before. She _knows_ how dying feels. What it's _like_.

This is _not_ that death.

Dying _before_, at the blade of _Galad Rosell_—fuck _fuck him_ **_fuck him_ **the _bastard_ fuck rip **_kill_** hate _hate **hate**_—was sharp and potent and felt. _It **felt.**_

This was _nothing_. This was _emptiness_. This was _absolution_.

**_Ouroboros_**. Eating it's own ass. _Shitty_ fucking _loops_. Model mode made of mobius strips stripes of stripping flesh from bone.

She screamed for what couldn't be more than an eternity. She tore her hair, her face, her skin. Blood and gore and bone and _bone_ and **_bone_** and hate hate _hate him_ **_Galad Rosell_** the shit-dicked _two-faced fuck—!_

Rage spent—_never_ never spent, an endless feeling of violent virulent fire inside her inside her inside **_inside_** _insist_—she stood and observed. The silence was _more_. The _view_ was less.

She was dead.

She was _more_ than that.

She was _even less._

A cosmic joke divided by zero. Where was your god _now_, Elias? Where _was_ he that night, when you took your last breath, arms spread wide like a _brave_ bastard _fucking coward_ dying with your wife and son **_running_** you _fool_ you **_bastard_** fucking _why did you leave me_ why _did_ you leave **_why did you—?!!_**

A century passed of walking—wailing _screaming_ for her son _her husband_ for the **_blood_ _of everyone_** every Chosen fucking tarred and feathered demons _plucked clean_ **_the bitch_** the _murdering_—and her shoes were worn _clear to her souls_. Her sole bare, torn and burnt souls slapping solidly against tarmac. Against tar. Against the machine.

Dead, _yes**no**_. Something _**more**less_.

She was _was_ was **_not_**.

_Kord_, of course. _His_ god—_damn him_ coward brave _fucking brave_ fucking **_kind_** fucking coward fucking _fucking **fucking**_ bloody _fucking run Elias **please**_ run Elias _please_ **_take_** _him_ and run _with_ us Elias _please_—a promise. **_Death_**. _Every_ fucking Chosen fucking bloody fucking _false_ blonde milk sopping sodden fops **_fucking dead_**. Galad Rosell—_damn him_ damn him _damn him_ you **_let him go_ **my _fucking_ ass you vile _fucking **liar**_—blade to his throat. _One year_ and she would be _fine_. Could join him in the Halls. _Could rest in oblivion_.

_Something_ changed.

It hadn't been a year, _had it?_ No. _No_. No it was _less_. She had done it in less. So many dead and Galad there _out of reach_ and there a couple **_others_**—_run_ not yet _not you_ perfect unblemished next to the rotting pile of shit fuck **_fucking die_ **you—but _not yet_. Not a **_year_**.

So then had he _died_? Had he _finally_ fucking _finally_ **_finality_** fucking fled to his bitch goddess? His _light_? Died for his cultish cunt fucking lies?

And _she_ hadn't done it so so _so sorry_ then she was cursed. Wandering. Forever.

In _**nothing**everything_. In _nowhere**here**everywhere_. _**Forever**never**ever**_.

Seconds passed and she understood..

An eon passed and she _did not._

A tug at her naval novel **_nothing new_** she flinched. She underestimated stood wondering blonde and light and fuck _fuck **fuck** fuck **hate**_ but the _chains_ the **_chain_** the change is too _too_ much and she she shearing like a sheep, naked livestock, came **_kindly if you would._**

In the beginning, she died.

Only she _didn't_.


	22. Twenty-two: Hallucination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 29
> 
> I love Marabelle so much.

The moment she's free, she can breathe at last and it hurts _so badly._

She's _never_ been happier to feel pain.

She's never been happier to have been proven _wrong_.

And holding her, cradling her close, teary and _smiling_, is Jolene.

_Jolene._

** _Jolene!_ **

She reaches out, an apology broken butterfly wings on her lips. She shares the truth of the matter, apologies not enough in the end.

Jolene listens and watches and does not judge.

Holds her and loves her, _in_ _spite_ of all she's done.

And it's _enough_.

_She's_ enough.

_Finally_, she is _enough_.

After _decades_, the hole in her chest is full—not of mushrooms, but of _flowers_. Ornitholagum in pretty white. Purple and yellow heartease. Sunny coronilla framed by burgundy geranium with silver leaves. A solitary sprig of pink snapdragons.

A garden in her chest and her sister by her side, she _breathes_. She breathes and breathes and _breathes_ and is gone.


	23. Twenty-three: Bleeding Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 58, suicidal ideation, vague mentions of combat violence, mentions of death, thoughts of self harm
> 
> Done last-minute coz Unsleeping City fucked me up. Sorry y'all.

His ears are ringing, screams and his own thoughts and guilt that drowns most everyone else. Fallow and hollowed, like something has scooped everything good out of him, burned the crops, and salted the earth behind them.

God. Fucking..._of fucking course_. Of _course_ he would have to do this. No rest. _No rest. **No rest.**_

So he asks _nicely_. He _asks nicely_ and they put it off and he can't blame them coz _who the fuck_ would _want_ to just up and kill your friend _but—?_

** _He asks nicely._ **

It would be kinder if they had complied.

He swings at a goblin, face set in stone, and yells and screams. Demands death. Demands blood.

Hit me. _Hit me. **Hit me!**_

The pain from outside can drown out the screaming inside. If he tries hard enough, he can shut them up. If he screams loud enough he can make them stop.

An axe. Again and _again_ and **_again_**. Ribs, shoulder, back, chest. And then he is floating, dark and detached.

He _knows_, with that strange battle clarity, that he is laying in a puddle of his own blood. He _knows_, with the sharpness of someone who has been here before, that he's made the choice for them. They can't waffle and wait any longer.

Eyes closed, he waits, seeking the feeling of Shadowfell reaching out to him. He waits for the ice in his veins to set in and steal his breath, what little he has left.

He lays prone, unmoving.

He bleeds.

He _waits_.

And darkness comes and he goes, a one-way elevator, and he feels them latch on. He drags them to hell with him. _He **damns** them._


	24. Twenty-four: Hidden Injury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 54, suicidal thoughts
> 
> This is another vague one. Figure the end out as you will.
> 
> (Balnor offers so much potential and I can't not take advantage of it.)

Balnor grins at Moonshine, Hardwon, and Beverly. The battle was hard-won, long and troubled, and they're taking a break to set up camp. So he does what he _always_ does: wanders off to not be a bother. He knows he's only there to be useful anyway, and he's no use like _this_.

For an older man, he's _pretty_ good at putting on a brave face and pretending everything is fine. He isn't sure now, after regaining his memories and facing down _literal gods_, if it's natural or just a byproduct of how he was raised, but he's learned the hard way that he has an impressively stoic nature when he wants.

He _wants_ all the time.

They're putting up camp in a clearing behind where the ambush happened, using the wreckage from the goblin phalanx and their war-machines to cobble together a lean-to built against a tree so they can, as usual, share a sleeping space. So Balnor, mouth set in a soft and lazy smile, sets the Bag down, snags a Bud Heavy, and goes to find somewhere to sit that's outside their line of sight.

_He feels ill_. That is not an exaggeration or a point to be made about the horrors of war. He is _literally_ sick. One of the daggers being wielded by a fanatical goblin was coated in a viscous lingering poison and, well, no one could say he was _careful_. He _wasn't_. _That was the point. Irony _and all that.

Sitting down, he lets out a soft hiss through his teeth. The way the poison seems to be working is almost alive. It's wriggling through him like so many worms in a grave and, while he's started to lose feelings in his extremities, there is a burning pain being chased by the numbness that is making itself home in his joints. It's making its way closer to his heart and he's _certain_ that that'll be the death of him.

No better way to go than drunk, _right_? And he's served his purpose, saved them, kept them alive, kept them moving. He's provided a voice to guide them back from the precipice and a voice to ignore when they're too angry to think straight. He's been someone to hold them when they cry and someone to focus on keeping alive. An anchor, a father, a helper, dead weight.

_His_ kids, his _family_, _whatever_ version of himself that would exist in this particular timeline—they're _safe_. The _threat_, _the_ fucking _asshole_ drow that killed them, is long gone and he can breathe easy.

Or he _could_, if the poison coursing through him wasn't clutching his chest like a vice. Irony again.

He pops the tab on the beer and takes a sip. It's hyper-sweet against the tacky bitterness of his failing body. It still soothes the fire in him and he can focus on the dead weight of fingers that won't move right and the absence of fear.

He's not afraid of dying. They don't _need_ him any more and he's done his job.

He's just glad he was of _some_ use.

And darkness, encroaching into his field of view, bringing with it the fire in his body and heralding the void of death that grips his limbs, steals his sight and he is content.

_He is content._

(He _can be_ if he keeps telling himself that.)


	25. Two (Alt.): Broken Voice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 53, self-destructive behaviour, self-medicating with drugs and alcohol
> 
> Heavily influenced by [can i try again, and again, and again? ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20777978/chapters/49376174) by strawberry_sky. It hurt and I wanted to play in this space too.

Thiala stands there and Ulfgar is sleeping and she waits for it to _all go to shit_. Like it did the _first_ time and the time after that and _the time after that_. _And_, if her luck continues, _more_ time beyond.

She's running out of options and she's running out of patience.

"The moon is gorgeous tonight."

Those are the last _true_ words ever spoken by Thiala and it is _heart wrenching_. Tears into her ribs and hollows out her chest.

Alanis steels herself and smiles and lies and laughs. Of course, _of course, **of course.**_ She can dance to this tune, exit gracefully, call it a day. She can _pretend_ until the shiny is gone from the penny and then run when it gets hard. She can lie and smile and manipulate and abandon. She's untethered, a puppet with cut strings.

She's done it for _centuries_ now. Time doesn't matter when you're looping it to your will and _less so_ when you're spending it on a plane with a time differential. And she's an _elf_, so centuries shouldn't feel like so much but they _do_.

** _They do._ **

_Gods_, they feel like dragging a dull sword across her scalp, shearing her head in the most laborious way possible. Decades that should be _moments_ are _forever_, and they are so many.

"The moon looks gorgeous tonight" may as well be tattooed on her skin for all she loves and hates it. May as well be her heartbeat for all she's remembered this exact moment and it's other variations.

But she _leaves_. She leaves and _runs_ and _plots_ and _plans_ and later, in the comfort of what is only her home by _sheerest_ technicality—her _actual_ home is there, with Ulfgar and Thiala, before everything got _so complicated_ that they couldn't see the forest for the fucking trees—she breaks down and screams and breaks things.

"The moon looks gorgeous tonight." Pittance, a fucking _lie_, bittersweet.

Nepenthe, _please_, let her forget. Drink from the Lethe, take a sip, babe, and never remember the pain of time and _time_ and **_time_**.

"The moon looks gorgeous tonight."

Banish the moon from her island under clouds and spells and reflections and hidden wards. She doesn't _want_ to, can't bring herself to, _will not subject herself to_ the fucking moon. The fucking _gorgeous_ moon. The memory of the breaking point.

She plots and plans and smokes until her head is filled with cotton fluff and not a single place for regret or golden light or smiles or warmth to sit and work it's way in, silkworms and moths consuming memories. She drinks until the bile on her lips is a bitter friend and she can wake to a hangover that drums out the call of her heart and the moon _the moon **the moon.**_

"The moon looks gorgeous tonight." She thinks as she goes to confront Thiala. Her mouth repeats the same, wonders if Thiala remembers, if the goddess is the same as the woman she wanted so long ago.

There is no recognition of the phrase and that is a dagger between her ribs, second and third, puncturing vital parts and releasing the air within.

She sobs, laughs, and flings spells with wild abandon.

"The moon looks gorgeous tonight."

And, unaffected by the irony, the moon sits in the sky, full and golden and so, so gorgeous.

Again. _Again. **Again**._


	26. Twenty-six: Abandoned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 15
> 
> Sometimes you think about Hardwon a lot and you get sad about his childhood. Then Murph does THAT with episode 80 and you just think more about Hardwon.

Red stared at the wriggling mess of a child in his arms. Kid was crying loud, fucking _great_ lungs on him, but they needed _quiet_. His ears pinned against his head and he turned to look at Gunther, who was steering the ship, a million miles away.

"Ey, _ey kid_. Shut up. _C'mon_. We gotta be _stealthy_ right now and you screaming for all the world ain't cutting it."

Not like he could blame him. Elias dead, Lydia _too_, probably, and he was stuck here with a rat and a bear and no idea if they were safe or not.

If Red had the option to scream for all he was worth, he'd do it _for sure_.

After a few minutes of trying to find the right rhythm to bounce the little shit to get him to shut up, he finally nodded off and Red let out some of the tension in his chest.

"_Fuck_."

Gunther looked over at him and nodded, giving the all-clear with a subdued growl.

"Thanks. _You_ wanna hold him?"

Gunther growled negative, shaking his big head and tapping the wheel.

"Yeah, _yeah_. Fucking lucky I _like_ you." There was no venom behind his words, just weariness. They were both _so tired_.

It's not like they weren't used to danger. They'd been part of the crew of the _Stormborn_ since _before_ Elias had picked up and fallen for Lydia, which meant the two of them had been through the shit and back many times. There was just something different about this. More _permanent_.

Maybe it was that they were the only ones left, the rest of the crew having either left or died. Maybe it was that they were running alternating shifts to keep the ship afloat and the kid alive. Maybe it was that _Elias was fucking **dead**._

_Yeah_, it probably was that last one.

Red can remember the fury on Lydia's face when she came tearing onto the _Stormborn_, kid in her arms. The way she shook as she said he wasn't coming. The way she didn't cry so much as collapse in on herself.

And then _she_ left too, swearing she was going to find Galad and get revenge, leaving them alone with her son. _Their_ son.

_Fuck_, did she think they'd be able to take care of themselves, _let alone_ a kid? Red had low standards as it was—_partially_ for being a ratfolk, _mostly_ coz he just _did_—and Gunther wasn't one for creature comforts. They'd be _just_ as happy living in a cave as they would on a ship. Add a baby in the mix and you had something _awful_. Like some kind of shitty situational comedy.

Red looked down at the sleeping baby in his arms and the sky all around him. He thought about the look on Lydia's face as she gave them the bad news and the way their small home had burned. He thought about his crewmates, cut down and screaming.

He thought about raising a kid on the run like this, never holding still, never staying in one place. Prioritizing survival over comfort or love. The threat of dying hanging over his head every day.

That's no life for a kid. Let alone one as young as this.

Would they be mad at him if he sent the kid off to live somewhere safe? Somewhere far away from them and their lifestyle? Somewhere away from his legacy?

Would he think he'd been _abandoned_? That he wasn't _good enough_ to keep?

"Set a course for Irondeep, bud. We got a kid to drop off."

Gunther let out an inquisitive rumble.

"We can't keep him. This isn't a good place to raise a kid and _you know it_."

Gunther nodded and spun the wheel to adjust course. He let out a low growl.

"_Thanks_ Gunther. Let's just hope she put up a good fight. That she took some of those fuckers with her."

The baby stirred in his arms and curled against his chest, letting out a whimper. Red smoothed some wispy hairs away from his face and he settled down again, sighing, content.

_Don't worry, kid. You haven't been abandoned. Someone out there loves you. It's just **complicated**. Everything is._

_Besides, you're Elias Stormborn Jr and you've been loved the moment you were conceived._


	27. Five (Alt.): Fist-Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: minor blood, minor violence

Blood across his knuckles, the crunching sound of someone's nose breaking, and a howl of pain. Hardwon crows in triumph and slams his fists into his opponent again and _again_.

"_Fucking piece of shit!_" He screams through gritted teeth, blood on his own face making it difficult to see with it crushing over his eyes and drying his eyelashes into thick clumps.“Say you’re fucking _sorry_, you rat’s ass!”

He can taste copper—same as they pull from the veins outside—but he's not stopping, not yet, not until he gets a _fucking apology_. He'll keep on until this crooked motherfucker can't see straight.

Which is why he's not too surprised to feel two sets of hands tear him off of his straddled position atop his current punching bag. The two other dwarves hold him still—he’s thrashing and manages to catch one of them in the shins because they _still_ don’t seem to get he has more of a reach than they do—but the one he _had_ been pummeling gets up, spits a loose tooth, and slams his own fist into Hardwon’s gut.

“Why don’t _you_ apologize?” Another hit. “Fucking _tall-ass_.” Another hit. “You think _anyone_ gives a shit about _you_?”

Hardwon’s vision goes dark around the corners. Each blow to his stomach sends a sharp wave of pain into his lungs and he wheezes around a mouthful of sour spit. Just as his consciousness is fading properly, one of the two dwarves holding him grabs a fistful of his beard—long enough to grab but short enough to not be braided properly—and yanks his head up again.

"_Nah_," the dwarf holding his beard sneers, "You don't get to nap until _we_ say so."

"F-_fuck_ you," Hardwon spits. They get him in the jaw and he sees stars.

When they're done hammering him into paste, bloody and bruised and broken, Hardwon lets the cold ground soothe his injuries. Behind him, just out of reach, the fifth party in this altercation—a much smaller dwarf, shaking in their boots—scrambles away without so much as a thank you.

That's _fine_ though. Hardwon doesn't need a thank you. It doesn't matter.

_It really doesn't_. He doesn't need a thank you.

He just wished someone had done the same for him.


	28. Twenty-eight: Beaten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 58, suicidal ideation, mentions of torture and starvation
> 
> You ever just feel sad about Beverly IV? No? Just me? Aight.
> 
> Thanks Murph. You fucking asshole. Making me cry over these people. Fuck.

Beverly Toegold IV sits in his cell, back against the wall, and waits. It's all he _can_ do, really, considering the circumstances.

The fact that he's even _alive_ right now is a miracle. He should be dead a dozen times over—beheaded in the boy-king's kangaroo court, blind and burning as Galaderon crumbles around his ears, sword in his gut as he refuses to tell these _fucking_ angels a _damn_ thing about Queen Cirilla—but he _isn't_. He's here, in a cell, starving and dehydrated, beaten within an inch of his life, and _wishing he was._

It's not even the type of suicidal longing he felt when he first arrived and realized that he wouldn't be able to see Martha again. It's the kind that's more of a quiet acceptance of what his situation is.

Dying here is a _mercy_. But they won't let him. _He's still **useful**_.

So he sits, body screaming for release, and wonders if he has the energy to escape. If he has the energy to do anything else.

(Knowing that Alanis won't move to help him. Not out of malice, but _fear_. She doesn't want to be found by Thiala and that's all well and good, but she's _also_ leaving her only ally high and dry, which is pragmatic and painful all in one go.)

Thiala's angels are good at their job. Masters of their craft, they can find a dozen ways to break a body without destroying it, holy magic resetting bones and undoing _just enough_ of the torture to let them keep going. Not enough to give him strength to fight back, but _definitely_ enough to keep him from passing out or dying.

_Frankly_, while macabre, it's rather impressive. Moreso that "good" beings like angels, like a _goddess_, would be able to torment and break someone without thinking anything of it.

Or, considering some of the things he's done as head of the Galaderon Green Knights and captain of the guard, maybe it's just the eventual decay of anyone with a strict moral code. They don't see what they're doing as _wrong_ because _he's_ broken _their_ laws, therefore any punishment is within the realms of possibility. _Nothing_ is _too far._

(With Galaderon burned to ash and rubble, is Martha and his son okay? Alanis mentions his son from time-to-time, keeps trying to give him updates on his and his companions' journeys, but he refuses every time. It feels voyeuristic and _wrong_. Like he's seeing this movie, this epic that he isn't a part of, even though _that's **his son**._ The breach between them has become a canyon and he will never be able to bridge it now. He has to be content with hoping.)

Outside of the iron-barred window of his enchanted and warded cell, he can hear movement. Not the careful steps of the angels—_when_ they tread on the ground, their gait is measured and precise, a march to Thiala's unspoken orders—but something quiet and low to the ground. Fast. _Hurried_ even.

The person making that noise stops in front of his cell and kneels down. Beverly Toegold IV finds himself staring at an Eladrin. Or, _no_, rather he finds himself staring at _something wearing the skin of an Eladrin._

He may not have _most_ of his magic, but he can sense the evil rolling off this Eladrin.

When it sees him look at it, it smiles, crimson eyes crinkling in a strangely insincere and almost _predatory_ way. And then it says his name. It tells him of his own plight. It _pities_ him.

_It offers him a deal._

A deal he seals with a handshake and his soul.

(Does he have a choice in the end? Trapped like a wild animal, cut off from his magic, being tormented by a woman who _dares_ call herself a goddess? Isn't this just the natural movement of things? _This_ or _death_? But his son can be safe. His Queen can be safe. His people can be safe. And he can ignore the loud voice in the back of his head that screams "_for now_" on repeat.)

(Because his body aches and so does his heart and what hasn't been beaten out of him will be willingly given if it means that this all stops. Because he's captain of the guard and this is his duty—to make the hard decisions and bear the burden of the consequences.)

(Because he's tired of hoping, and if Akarot can provide results, then _it will be worth it._)


	29. Twenty-nine: Numb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 80, death
> 
> I fucking love Egwene? I really do. And there is nothing more wonderful than feeling vindicated when canon cements a headcanon you had about a character.
> 
> (There is tragedy in children being witness to a war. Moreso when they fight in the war. She's only 19. She was only 16. They shouldn't have to do this.)
> 
> Going up early for Unsleeping City Crimes (namely I won't be posting this at midmight because I will be busy weeping over the UC finale.)

The first time she goes to see an execution, it's under the pretense that she's "_earned it_".

The man tried to kill the captain of the White Knights. Instead of taking him out on the spot, they managed to capture him and were making an example of him.

(That's what Captain Toegold said. "_Making an example of him._" Like taking his head off was the same as making a troubled kid wear a dunce cap or write lines or some _other_ third punishment. Plain and simple. _It made her sick_.)

The blade went up, his head came off, and she watched the whole thing. She "earned it" after all.

(Before _all this_, she assumed being a Green Knight was an honor. It's not. It's a _burden_.)

After that, she drew in on herself. She had this secret she couldn't share with her brother—stupid little Erlin, too young to understand and too soft-hearted to take it—and this leg-up over her other Green Teens. They didn't _get_ to see executions. They didn't _get_ to go on sanctioned missions. They didn't _get_ to fight _for real_. She was a _prodigy_. A _gifted kid_. Something to strive to reach.

(She understood why the other knights were so solemn. Why they didn't participate in the same kind of revelry as the Green Teens. Why they didn't smile when the kids played _Heroes and Monsters_. You don't make light of death when you've seen it in person. You have to be respectful because one day it'll come for you. And when that man's head rolled, the scales fell from her eyes and _she understood_.)

_Youngest Green Knight in Galaderon history._ Like it's some kind of badge of honor. She repeats it to herself in the long night, heart clenched as she tries to sleep. Prays for no nightmares. Hopes she doesn't have that "honor" again.

When she closes her eyes, she sees that man's face, frozen in a voiceless cry for help, and she wakes mimicking it. When Erlin comes to rest against her after having a nightmare himself—his small form radiating heat, a weight against her to anchor her here—it is enough to keep her grounded. She has _him_. She has _mom and dad._ Just because she has to know death doesn't mean she is alone or has to be afraid.

And, like anything left in the sun for too long, her fear and disgust fade.

(Again, _again, **again,**_ she is "_honored_" and "_allowed_" to view execution after execution. By the fourth, she feels as hollow as the other knights look. It is a solidarity she doesn't find solace in. How can she tell her friends, her peers, her family that the sight of someone taking their final breath is _nothing spectacular._ That this is a horror that has become mundane? That the other day, she missed seven shots in a row, casually commented "well I guess I have to go to the block now," and only the older knights laughed? That everyone else looked at her, _concerned_? She is broken now, _by design_.)

And then mom and dad die. And it's her and Erlin and Nana and she's a full Green Knight and something inside of her snaps and the scab peels back.

The _next_ execution she sees—the first one she sees as a full-fledged knight—she watches, but the familiar nausea sets back in and she _treasures_ it.

What if that was her parents? Nana? _Erlin?_

She shouldn't forget the weight of life.

And then the vizier is set to be executed and Captain Toegold brings his kid to work. To _witness_. Its an "_honor_". She feels a surge of panic and anger war inside her because he's _just_ as young as _she_ had been the first time.

He's the same age as Erlin and she can't help but see herself in the way he fixes his eyes on his dad, pale and shaking. He wants to he strong, to be an adult, to be like his father but she knows. _She **knows.**_

If you get used to it, if you look too long at the sun, you forget how it feels to value life.

And she won't say it out loud, but she wants him to stay young. Stay a kid. Get to be what _she_ missed out on.

Instead she offers him some words of wisdom and a hand to hold.

(She doesn't even mind that she has to shake feeling back into it after the event. Feeling is better than _not_.)


	30. Thirty: Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: spoilers through episode 54, heavy grief
> 
> I really love Balnor a lot, okay? Where is he, Murph? Where is he?!!

When he remembered, _really_ remembered, there was something in him that **_snapped_** and he found that he couldn't stand without shaking. And, in the same way that he had previously supported them, Moonshine, Hardwon, and Beverly keep him on his feet and walk him to a place where he could be safe. Where he could _feel_.

The wash of Silence over his skin was like rain. He wailed. He mourned _all over again._

He had a _family_. A _wife_. A _son_.

_Had_.

** _Past tense._ **

They _died_ and then, in a grand cosmic **_fuck you_,** _they_ _didn't even exist in the first place_. Granted, it was _his_ choice to come here, to this time that wasn't his with a group of people he'd never have known otherwise, but _still_.

** _Still._ **

For a woman who knew _so much_, Alanis _understood_ very little.

But he cried and he walked along the ocean and contemplated. He mourned his family and his people and his time and the life he had before everything had gone to shit. And then he joined up with his new family—not a _replacement_, but an _addition_, a graft—and moved forward. It was _all_ he could do. _Forward._

Just let him have his in the end. Let him make sure that no version of him can suffer again.

When he shoved the mortally wounded Hound into the Bag—_his_, a task he had taken to with a soft appreciation, but something to look forward to and care for among a group of competent people who outclassed him in combat and wisdom alike—and gleefully let him die, there was a moment of catharsis, snapping whips of finally _finally **finally**_, and then an emptiness in its wake. Like a surging tide, receding to make way for a tsunami.

When all was said and done, revenge had, _he still was here_. He still was _alive_. _They_ were alive.

He would keep them that way.

He couldn't go _back, _so forward it was.

With his family—a graft, by choice, but _his_—and his duty and his burdens and his memory. He would carry it forward and keep marching.

He would support them.

He would _heal_.

Forward. _Forward. **Forward.**_

Until the end.

And _even then_, forward still.


	31. Thirty-One: Embrace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: vague spoilers through episode 77, nothing much else
> 
> Going up early because Fantasy High plus NADDPOD plus Halloween. I love y'all :>
> 
> A hypothetical end to it all. More hurt/comfort than the other chapters but, considering what's going on in canon, I think I'm allowed to be a little soft.
> 
> I'm not happy with this, but I am satisfied. It's done. It's fine. I'll be fine.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this collection! It was a delight to write and, god willing, I'll do something like this later, maybe.

_It was over. _It was over and they could rest. They could _rest_. Go _home_. Live their lives.

The war was won. At a cost, of course, for _no_ war is _bloodless_. Some people were going home. Some people were _not_.

But it was _a_ victory and they had to take that much at least. They _had_ to, or they'd fall apart.

So, peace filling their lungs, their heart, their _selves_, they left to the four corners to do their own thing. Bahumia had no need of heroes at the moment. And besides, someone else would always rise to the occasion. They'd proven that.

They had lives to attend to now.

* * *

Moonshine—who returned to the Crick for a _brief_ moment only to wander her way back to Gladeholm in a way befitting someone who loved Melora in the way she did—helped Lucanus and Erdan and Mavris and Mawmaw sort out the gross mess the King had left of the capital of the high elves. She helped make sure the University was open to whomever wanted to try out Arcane Magic and that the housing in Gladeholm proper was being put to good use. She even grew a small mushroom garden dedicated to Melora, leaving behind spores that had seen more planes than most of the students in the University.

But it wore on her. She would see something and turn to her left to riff at Hardwon. Or she would find something neat and try and ask Bev if he knew what it meant. Or she would hear music and strike up a dance and try and grab Balnor. Or she would make a meal for more mouths than she had. Or she would trance because sleeping in a bed with only PawPaw felt cold and lonely and _weird_.

Lucanus wasn't surprised to see her wander off to "visit Galaderon and see how reconstruction was going". In fact, with a soft and understanding smile, he pressed a bracelet enchanted with Sending in her hands, a kiss against her forehead, and wished her luck on her journey.

* * *

Hardwon patched up the _Stormborn_ and made his trade carrying supplies for restoration. Red and Gunther—and a small crew of some rough and tumble orphans Hardwon had _totally_ brought on as _interns_ and _not_ fully-paid crew members **_fuck you_**—griped about "going straight", but he put his foot down and they conceded. And it was good and steady work, even if it _was_ meandering and not _particularly_ lucrative.

Plus the little shits he'd taken on as crew were fucking fast learners. He was having to do less and less with each passing day. Left him to his own devices more often than not.

He figured he was doing his dad proud. He _knew_ his ma was proud—Lucanus had enchanted a mirror in the main bedroom with a modified communication spell between planes and they'd kept in touch. She was working on restructuring the hierarchy and repairing relations between the monsters and humanoids. She _also_ told him she loved him on the reg. _It was **nice**._

_Overall_, he was fine. Keeping out of Irondeep for _no particular reason_, but _fine_. Busy. _**Don't** ask._

Only, he would find the crows nest empty of an idiot about to break his legs again and his chest would catch. Only, the galley wasn't filled with the smells of spices and meat he didn't know the origins of and he lost his appetite. Only, there wasn't a steady presence behind him, encouraging him to keep on keeping on and he'd falter for a second. Only, he found himself laying in bed, wondering when it got so big and so cold, unable to sleep for some reason, and he'd yearn.

So he picked up a job to take some mined and shaped stone from a port city at the far east to Galaderon and he _definitely_ didn't have any ulterior motives. _None_ at all. **_Fuck off._**

* * *

Balnor hadn't known what to do when they finished. He didn't have a home to go back to, nor did he have a family. And it's not like he could just hang out with Moonshine or Hardwon or Bev for the rest of his life. He had to learn more about _this_ Bahumia, the one _he helped save._

So he started wandering. He packed a large bag—not _the_ Bag, that item having been lost during the final battle in a gambit involving a pocket dimension that only _marginally_ paid off—full of provisions, grabbed the sword Bev had given him, and started exploring.

There was immeasurable beauty in Bahumia. Even when it was recovering from a war that ravaged three quarters of the surface of the Prime Material Plane, it was _so unlike_ everything he had _ever_ seen before. And he took every opportunity to enjoy the peace he found, his hand only straying to his blade in the most extreme circumstances. Balnor walked from Gladeholm to Moonstone and then from there to Irondeep, just to see where Hardwon had grown up. He wanted to see it all. Map it out on his heart.

But even in the peace that followed the wake of war, Balnor found something didn't sit right with him. A sharp ball of glass shards that nestled into his ribs and heart, making itself known every so often. Not a kind of pain that was _debilitating_, but certainly one that would not be ignored for long.

It hurt when he would idly mention something he told Bobby once to a Beverly that wasn't there. It hurt when he'd stop to watch the sky shift from day to night and Moonshine wasn't sitting beside him to point out homemade constellations. It hurt when he would have to protect himself, landing a solid strike against his opponent, and he realized it was just him there, no Hardwon covering his back. It hurt when he slept in a bedroll that was more _vast_ than it had _any right_ being, the lack of other bodies pressed against his in the night a strange reminder of change.

He couldn't ignore it _much_ longer, he reasoned, so why not see if Bev had time to chill? If not then that would be fine. He oriented himself towards Galaderon and started off. After all, the worst he could say was no.

* * *

Beverly Toegold V, last of his name, was welcomed home more of a hero than he would have _ever_ expected. Sometimes it even got a bit _overwhelming_, really, but he had a duty—not _just_ as someone who saved all of Bahumia, but as the son of the previous captain of the knights of Galaderon—and he would uphold it.

Right up until his mom made him stop and take a break. She wasn't going to have him survive everything _just_ to work himself into the ground. So he started pacing himself better and she seemed satisfied. 

Between the rebuilding efforts, the Green Teen Outreach Program _actually_ coming to fruition, and the installation of the Grey Knights—a group of his own making, modeled after his own Oath, and meant to replace the Chosen in the hierarchy of Galaderon's guard—Bev had little time to himself. It meant that, most days, he would just pass out on whatever surface looked the most comfortable. But it also meant that he needed to be "kidnapped" from time to time so he'd have a moment to breathe.

Egwene had gotten good at sneaking into his room and he'd gotten _equally_ as good at booby trapping the place up. It had become a friendly competition between them, only made unfair when Erlin helped one or the other out.

And, _speaking_ of Erlin, the two of them hadn't started back _exactly_ where they left off but, after all was said and done, they decided to try again. They were taking it slower than before, making sure they were doing it better, and that's all they could ask for, _especially_ at their age.

Even with everything going so well—or _as_ well as it _could_ on a day-to-day basis—there was a strange hollowness that had made itself home in Bev's chest. Like a balloon, pushed too far for too long, the lack of _something_ kept bothering him.

Like he'd go to grab breakfast and be surprised to see his mom there, making stickybuns and warm eggs. Or he'd find himself thinking aloud as if he wanted advice from someone who wasn't there. Or even that he'd shout "watch this" during sparring and falter, realizing that he didn't _need_ to. And at night, in a bed that once felt too small for one growing person, he was drowning in sheets and pillows and colder than he'd been in a long time.

So it was surprising when a delivery of building materials was brought in by the _Stormborn_, Hardwon grinning up a storm and trying to pretend he wasn't happy to see him. Moreso when Moonshine ambled her way into town a few hours later, idly remarking on the lack of mycenoid influence in the gardening. And he was plumb ecstatic to see Balnor, weathered but smiling warmly, greet the three of them like they'd never parted ways in the first place.

In a moment of sheer joy, filled with all the peace and warmth and love he had for each and every one of his friends, Bev grabbed them close and held them against him. Even as small as he was in comparison to Moonshine and Hardwon, they wrapped their arms around him as well, and the four of them stood, hugging, in the middle of the street.

But it didn't matter that they looked like idiots, hugging it out. They'd fought a war. They'd _won_. They'd _survived_. They'd earned a little comfort.

For now they'd hold each other close and make plans to meet up again.

Bahumia didn't _need_ heroes any more. Not on _that_ scale, anyway. So they would cast aside the mantle of hero and just be _themselves_. Four assholes with little in common past the scars they shared.

A family of the most unusual circumstances. Forged under duress. Tempered with the fires of the Hells. Free to relax at last.

Sharing one big bed.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt list I am using can be found [here ](https://whumptober2019.tumblr.com/post/188047381368/whumptober2019-whumptober2019-october). Happy spoop month.


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